Dr. Rodney Karr's spirituality is centered in his childhood experience growing up in Northwestern Oregon, and being taught and shown by his wilderness expert father the sacred nature of the land, it's trees, animals, and waters. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, in 1975. He has practiced as a clinical psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1975 to the present. He taught at UCSF Medical School from 1976 through 1981. For more information, concerning Dr. Karr's psychology practice, click here.

Dr. Karr was raised in a deeply spiritual and religious Scotts-Irish extended family with Celtic spiritual values and traditions, including a close relationship with nature and the spiritual realm. He has studied since childhood of various spiritual traditions including the Christian Mystic Tradition, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Cabala, Native American Spirituality, and Celtic Spirituality. He became an ordained minister within a 501(c)(3) church called The Association for the Integration of the Whole Person. The Association for the Integration for the Whole Person is an interdenominational church with over seven hundred ordained ministers and congregations. AIWP has existed for over thirty years. See: http://www.aiwpetc.homestead.com/. Dr. Karr has been an ordained minister with his own congregation, Manannan Mac Lir Grove of AIWP, since 1995. Dr. Karr's ministry is based in his Scotts Irish spiritual traditions, his Jungian transpersonal psychological training and work, and his studies of the Western Mysteries tradition, and nature-wisdom traditions. He has worked diligently in his life to integrate his Jungian psychological work, his close connection with nature, his stewardship of the land, and his eco-spiritual ministry.

The Monarch Bear Institute has evolved by Dr. Karr bringing together a number of people who share his nature wisdom beliefs and his desire to teach the stewardship of the sacred land.

Dr. Karr's long-term twenty five year history involvement with the landmarks preservation movement in San Francisco, has given him extensive experience in dealing with communities, government and business. Dr. Karr has personally restored three Victorian Landmark buildings in San Francisco, between 1978, and 1996. Click here to read more.